


The Golden Rule

by alltoseek



Category: Person of Interest (TV)
Genre: Consent Issues, M/M, Sex Pollen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-05
Updated: 2017-04-05
Packaged: 2018-10-15 04:36:22
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,992
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10550168
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alltoseek/pseuds/alltoseek
Summary: “A lesser man might take this opportunity to get revenge for the way I treated you. I'm sorry, John, did I tell you that? I didn't want to hurt you.”





	

**Author's Note:**

> Please note I have chosen not to use warnings, due to the consent issues in a "sex pollen" fic.
> 
> Many thanks to my beta, feroxargentea, who doesn't understand the appeal of consent issue fics, but will beta anything I write, which is pretty damn awesome! :D

Reese had Harold pressed up against a wall in the library. “Please, Harold,” he whispered, brushing his lips along his jawline, his ear. “I can make you feel good. Let me make you feel good.”

Harold stared straight ahead and didn't respond.

“Please, Harold,” Reese begged. His head rested against the wall, his nose in the crook of Harold's neck and shoulder. He gently caressed Harold through the many layers of his suit. He inserted one leg between Harold's thighs, pressing his hips against his belly.

He groaned, realizing that Harold was soft, entirely unaroused. The quick breaths, jumping pulse, wide eyes – all fear or anxiety, not arousal. He forced himself to move both hands to the wall on either side of Harold, pushing himself away. Closing his eyes, he took a step backwards, turned, then walked away into a small, barren room, closing the door.

He collapsed onto the floor. He wanted to take his clothes off, to touch himself, but he knew it would only make it worse. He kept his hands and face on the floor, trembling and sweating and shivering. He just had to wait it out. He wished he wasn't alone.

Sometime later he heard Harold's uneven tread outside the door. A syringe rolled under the door. “An antidote, Mr. Reese. With a mild sedative.”

He didn't wait for Harold to finish speaking. He inserted the needle through his suit trousers and injected his thigh. He lay back down and waited.

He woke cold, in sweat-soaked clothes. The urgency had receded but he still ached with loneliness. He got up, listened a moment, then opened the door. He could hear Finch's typing down the hall. He slipped out the other way and went back to his apartment.

 

**~o~o~o~**

 

Venbrosia, the latest in “party” drugs, was particularly nasty, inducing in its victims a craving not just for sex, but for touch: skin-to-skin contact with another human being. Connection, pleasure; the release of orgasm, the release from loneliness.

An offshoot from the pharmaceutical search for a “female Viagra”, its escape from labs and regulations was facilitated despite numerous indications of serious health risks. Out on the street, several deaths had already been attributed to it, and many more were likely misdiagnosed by findings of drug overdose, alcohol poisoning, myocardial infarction, stroke.

 

**~o~o~o~**

 

With Mr. Reese uncommunicative (he wouldn't answer his phone, but when Harold turned the mic on, he could hear breathing and rustling), and presumably still out of commission (though evidently alive at least), Harold ventured into the field himself. He wasn't _stupid_ about it. He went to meet the Number at an upscale bar, the kind aimed at the young professionals in the city, although the term “yuppie” was now out of fashion. He'd be in public, in a place no more prone to crime than anywhere else. He'd take a cab, limiting his exposure to any possible nefarious lurkers. And he certainly would neither drink nor eat anything, though he was adept at pretending to drink in such social settings. 

However, he misjudged the strength of temptation that an ugly old crippled man could pose to one of the “wolf-cubs” of Wall Street. He overlooked the banality of evil that could prompt a callous young man not only to dose such a pathetic creature, to watch him then yearn in vain for the attention of any of the healthy beautiful people of the milieu; but to do so by coating a steak knife with the substance, and then “accidentally” slicing his skin with it, ripping right through his shirt.

At first Harold thought it had indeed been a careless, thoughtless accident. It didn't hurt much – just a graze, although it certainly stung; but it bled disastrously, napkins notwithstanding. He went to the pharmacy down the block, only beginning to feel the effect of the drug after the wound was properly bandaged.

_“Finch,”_ came John's rasp over the phone. 

“I find myself in a bit of a fix, Mr. Reese,” said Harold. “Are you up to driving?”

_ “Yeah. Where are you? What do you need?” _

“Just the car, thank you,” said Harold, adding the address.

 

**~o~**

 

Reese determined Finch had been dosed even before he arrived and saw the man in person. Finch had become unusually chatty over the comm, his voice wavering, uneven. In the car, he slid over to sit as close to Reese as possible. Reese had to detach Finch's arms from around himself, first to buckle him in, and again to be able to drive.

“You'll take care of me, won't you, John? You won't leave me?”

“I'll take care of you, Harold.”

“I know I can be cold, even cruel,” continued Finch. “But you're not cruel, are you? Not like me. You wouldn't leave me alone like this.”

“I won't leave you. I'm going to take care of you.”

“A lesser man might take this opportunity to get, um, revenge. Vengeance. For the way I treated you. I'm sorry, John, did I tell you that? I didn't want to hurt you.”

“You didn't hurt me, Harold. Don't worry, all right? It's gonna be okay.”

“Because you'll take care of me, right?”

“Yeah, Harold. I'll take care of you.”

Getting up to his apartment was a bit of a challenge, with Harold clinging to him, more unsteady than usual, almost tripping over his legs. However, John had managed much worse in the past. Once inside, he’d never been so glad for the obvious presence of his large bed on the other side of the loft; Harold was ready to strip them both as soon as the door closed, but John kept directing him to the bed, urging him to its comfort. Harold didn't need much convincing so long as they stayed in contact.

At the bed Harold didn't waste any time in divesting himself of the rest of his clothes. John tried to keep his own on, but Harold kept pulling them out of the way, demanding access to naked flesh. He wanted them to lie together, head to toes, skin pressed to skin. John obliged. He tried to soothe him, holding him, caressing him. Harold pressed their lips together; he couldn't get enough of kissing.

“You want this, right, John?” he asked, eyes huge and searching.

“Yeah, Harold,” John said. “I want this.”

“It's good. You like it.” Harold's voice wavered between statement and inquiry, seeking confirmation.

“Yeah, it's good. You're good.”

Satisfied, Harold smiled and returned to kissing.

Reese tried to use just his hands to satisfy him, but Harold wanted more, begged him for more. He wanted John inside him; not just fingers, he wanted more. When John finally gave it to him, thrusting inside him, filling him up, Harold was so happy, as he murmured to John, felt wonderful, so grateful. Eventually Harold was sated and they fell asleep, Harold completely wrapped within John's limbs.

 

**~o~o~o~**

 

Reese woke to find Harold dressing, jerking last night's clothes on with awkward, abrupt movements. “Harold. How are you?” he asked in his morning rasp.

Harold glared at him. “How do you _think_ , Mr. Reese?” he hissed. “How could you _possibly_ think that was what I wanted?” 

“Well, Harold,” drawled Reese, “there was all the beg-”

“I was _drugged_ , as you very well know. Anything I said, any 'consent' implied was meaningless!” 

“What would you have had me do, Harold?” demanded Reese. “I might have found a discreet prostitute, but you’re a very private person –”

“You could have left me alone!”

“You never shared the antidote with me, so I couldn't –”

“There was no antidote! I gave you a sedative – the placebo effect –”

“A placebo or sedative might have been dangerous or inadequate, Harold, since I don't know anything about your health or medical issues, as you are such a _very_ private person –” 

“You didn't need to know –”

“People have _died_ from this drug, Finch – cardiac arrest if left untreated! And I couldn't take you to a doctor, either, as you are –” 

“– A very private person, _exactly_ , Mr. Reese. Which is why you should have Left. Me. _Alone!”_ With that Harold exited the apartment. 

Reese spent the day trying to work out the anger, the defensiveness, and then the increasingly guilty shame he felt. A long run to clear his head; weights to exercise his anger; yoga to release the tension. Clearing the anger and tension left him only with the shame and the guilt. Finch was right; there was no excuse for John's behavior. He'd probably been right about Reese wanting to take revenge, too. He just took it in a different form. John couldn't tease out the motives behind his own actions. In any case it didn't matter, Finch was right. What John had done was unforgivable.

Except Finch would forgive him, or pretend to; would act like it never happened. The numbers came first; he wouldn't want Reese to leave over this. John knew that. If he were anything like a decent person, he would stay, and pretend, like Finch, that this had never happened.

But he wasn't anything like a decent person. That much had been clearly established.

 

**~o~**

 

_“I'm sorry, I didn't want to hurt you,”_ Harold had said. At the time John hadn't paid it any more attention than the rest of Harold's utterances, issued under duress as they were. He’d assumed Finch had meant that hurting him had been an unintended side effect of leaving him alone, which, _obviously_. It hadn't needed to be said, but then Harold wasn't monitoring his words. 

Or, John had supposed, Finch might have meant that he hadn't realized how much being alone under the influence of the drug did hurt, and now that he was experiencing the intensity of it himself, he was sorry for having subjected John to it.

But now, John finally understood, Finch had meant that he left Reese alone precisely because he didn't want to hurt him by engaging in non-consensual sex.

That was the kind of instinctual understanding, the basic morals, that Reese had lost a long time ago. His instincts now were to do whatever was most convenient, the easiest, the straightest line through the mission.

When your body was a weapon, everything looked like a target.

 

**~o~**

 

John supposed that if he did keep working with Finch, eventually the hideous tight knot of shame would ease, would fade. He should stick it out; after all, that's what Finch would want.

He didn't think he could do it. He had to face it now, he really was a monster. He'd lost any sense of right and wrong, any conscience. He'd done to Harold what he had because he'd wanted to. He wanted it to be justified by the arguments he'd made, but Finch was right, of course: Harold had been under the influence, unable to consent, and he'd made his sober opinion on the matter perfectly clear earlier, with his actions when John had been dosed. John in turn had done what he'd wanted for himself under similar circumstances, but not what Finch had wanted or needed.

And if John could do that to the only person in the world he could consider a friend, then he was clearly unfit to even pretend he could make the right choices in civilized society.

He couldn't do it. He’d already killed when Finch would have preferred he didn't – very likely he would keep on making such fatal errors. Finch hadn't liked his making Fusco an asset, or Carter – they had worked out, but mostly through luck; certainly so in Fusco's case. And possibly in Carter's they were only corrupting her, leading her to a bad end, like Reese himself. He could no longer consider himself an adequate judge.

Finch had Fusco, Carter, Bear; Shaw would probably come around eventually. Maybe even sooner, if Reese himself was out of the picture.

Which he would be. He needed to be.

Reese left.


End file.
